The lost baby and the quick escape from aisle 5

School Administrator, Dec, 2004

Absentmindedness

Miriam Baker, currently a doctoral student in educational administration at the University of Texas at Austin, had several years of teaching foreign language and English at a high school in Pleasant Hill, Ore., when she resigned toward the end of her pregnancy.

Sadly, the pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage, and Baker returned to work soon after in the same school district to support her husband, who was working on his Ph.D. Because it was mid-year, she accepted the district's only open position as an instructor for a junior high remedial reading class. She says perhaps the most memorable moment from that experience, ironically, involved the language of miscarriage.

Baker welcomed the change since it afforded her fresh entry in an assignment where the students and staff would be unlikely to know about the miscarriage and make it a continual topic of conversation. However, one new student, being a younger sibling of a former high school student of hers, was aware of the pregnancy and asked the teacher where her baby was, adding, "You should bring it to class."

Baker was simultaneously touched by the sweetness and innocence of the request and unexpectedly challenged to explain why she could not do so. Taking into account the maturity level of the student, she opted for a simple response that she had lost the baby.

Tears welled in the student's eyes as he rejoined: "But where did you put it?"

Supermarket Escape

Several years ago two kindergarten classes in Mountain Home, Ark., had to be moved to the district's middle school campus due to overcrowding at the elementary school. Al Hunter, who is now superintendent in Brantley County, Ga., was the middle school principal at the time.

Hunter enjoyed watching the 5-year-olds line up in the morning for water and bathroom breaks outside his office. He would wave and greet the students each day.

When grocery shopping one evening, Hunter noticed a little girl tugging on her mother's dress, saying, "That's him, that's him!" Hunter puffed out his chest, figuring he was in for some recognition as the friendly principal until the little girl continued, "That's the man that watches me go to the bathroom everyday."

Hunter quickly turned down another aisle and made a bee-line for the exit.

A Kissing Booth Too?

One evening at a school board meeting in Passaic, N.J., a community resident stood up to make a point about the district's athletics facilities: "Mr. Superintendor, we need more conception stands at our stadium!"

No Tackling the Board

As a former running back in the Canadian Football League, Chris Spence is accustomed to carrying the ball for his team.

His load recently became a lot heavier than a pigskin when Spence was named director of education (the equivalent of a superintendency in the United States) for the 60,000-student Hamilton-Wentworth School District in Ontario after serving as an administrator in Toronto.

An educator since 1991, he carries a reputation too as a firm disciplinarian and vocal advocate for the most downtrodden.

Spencer played for the British Columbia Lions until an injury ended his career in 1988. (Source: The Toronto Star)

A Taylor-Made Match

James E. Taylor, who spent 31 years as superintendent of the Katy independent School District, and Edward "Doc" Taylor, a teacher for 22 years in the Alief Independent School District, never engaged in a spitting contest or any other sort of sparring during their lengthy professional careers in the suburbs of Houston, Texas.

Yet the two high schools bearing their names--Katy Taylor and Alief Taylor--were linked in a fight of another sort this fall when they met on the football field in a game that had weeks of advance buildup.

One newspaper pegged it the "Battle of the Taylors."

(Source: The Houston Chronicle)

Quotable Quote

"My dilemma comes now: What are you going to do for the guys?"

Covington, Ky., Superintendent Jack Moreland's tongue-in-check comment after he paid personally for 20 female staff members to attend a local performance of the Chippendales, a male dance revue. He did this as a way to recognize their hard work throughout the year.

(Source: Kentucky School Boards Association)